With five-day cricket on life support in recent years, as fans turn to the shorter forms, something needs to be done to bring Test cricket back.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) needs to keep Test cricket’s traditions, but experiment with ideas from T20s to make the purest form more of a spectacle.
Cricket needs to follow sports such as rugby league, which is always experimenting with the game to make it better. The NRL are always looking to adjust to bring more fans through the gates, yet maintain the traditions of 100 years ago.
While commentating recently, Kevin Pietersen said what makes the Big Bash unique is how it’s access all areas, with cameras on helmets that show what the batsmen see, and microphones on players to give fans an insight into what the best players are thinking in the heat of battle.
Fans would love the likes of David Warner mic’d up, to see how he changes approach for different situations. Steve Smith would be another great person to get an insight from, especially his on-field leadership approach, with the controversy of not bowling Nathan Lyon when people think he should.
Introducing the no ball rule would also add extra excitement – if a bowler bowls a no ball it would be a free hit, putting more pressure on a bowler, encouraging more big shots, with players like David Warner ready to take full advantage.
Obviously, the discussions need to be monitored, as we saw recently when Mark Howard passed on bowling statistics to Adelaide captain Brad Hodge. So for this to work there would have to be an agreement between teams, the ICC and players so it does not give one side an unfair advantage.
But while tradition is important, sometimes it needs to be adjusted for the benefit of the game.
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